


Happy Sad Stardust

by CDRomelle



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Dirty Talk, Eventual Smut, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Shiro (Voltron), SHEITH - Freeform, Season 7 fix-it, and if you have dark thoughts you can get through them too!!!, but he gets through them, season 8 fix-it, shiro has dark thoughts, talking about sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2019-11-05 03:10:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17910878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CDRomelle/pseuds/CDRomelle
Summary: He wants to live, but only on principle.It’s like a game he plays with himself. A game that stopped being fun as soon as he learned he was playing it. A game he keeps playing for no reason other than this:Shiro hates to lose.A Voltron S8 fix-it fic that starts at the beginning of Season 7.





	1. A Little Adventure

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fic as a way of coping with my disappointment with S8. My goal is to continue Shiro's character arc from S7E1 onward (so strange that it dropped out of the show as soon as he came out as gay 🤔) and then change the end of S7 to give Shiro an arc and then, eventually, end up with Keith.

He wants to live, but only on principle. 

That’s how it’s always been, or at least close enough to always that even the world’s most advanced telescope couldn’t discern the difference. 

It’s like a game he plays with himself. A game that stopped being fun as soon as he learned he was playing it. A game he keeps playing for no reason other than this: 

Shiro hates to lose. 

That was enough to get him to the Garrison, even when they said he should give up on his dreams of becoming an astronaut. 

It was enough to get him the highest scores the Garrison had ever seen. 

It was even enough to take a life in the arena. First one, then another, then another. All so he could say, “I won’t lose. Not yet.” 

It was the principle of the thing.

Then, there was Voltron. 

All of a sudden, one brittle reason became almost too many to count. 

He remembers the night on the Castle Ship when he first realized that now, when he dies, it might actually matter in the universe. When he dies, there might not be Voltron. When he dies, the last best hope against the Galra could go too. 

Not to mention six people who will miss him. 

He didn’t sleep all night. 

The next morning, Keith asked him if he was okay. Keith could always tell when something was wrong. Shiro brushed him off, but the next chance he got--bleeding out on a backwater planet while space cats hunted him like prey--he told Keith that he needed to be ready to lead Voltron. 

So that when he dies, he may still be letting people down, but at least he made a plan. It’s his one last chance to be useful, one last chance to make his life worth something. To have a point, other than just eking out one more hollow victory against an inexorable universe. 

_ Shiro… I won’t give up on you… _

That voice--

It is the voice that gives him purpose. Friend. Mentor. Co-pilot.

Keith doesn’t need any of that from him anymore. 

_ Shiro… fight! _

Why?

This isn’t even his body. 

Not that that matters so much--the last one didn’t really feel like  _ his  _ body either. Not in the way that other people’s bodies seemed to belong to them. 

Other people’s bodies didn’t have a death wish like his did. 

Why keep playing? No matter how high a score he racks up, his only reward will be to slowly wither inside his own failing muscles. 

Wouldn’t it be better to go now? To just… fade away?

_ Shiro… _

He dreams of stars. 

He has always dreamed of stars. Before Voltron, before Kerberos. Before his diagnosis. When he was just a child who spent every night looking at the sky. Seeing, not a map, or a battlefield, or a challenge to throw in the faces of his doubters. 

That child just saw the stars. 

And that was enough. 

He hasn’t felt that way in a lifetime. Hasn’t even gone searching for his fading memories of that starry-eyed little boy, not since--

_ You can’t do this to me again. _

Arizona. Desert cliffs. The night before he left for Kerberos. 

Sitting on the back of his hoverbike, watching red sunset fall like a curtain for the speckled sky. 

With Keith. 

That night, he wasn’t a friend, or a mentor, or a co-pilot. He wasn’t an invalid, or an ex, or a poster boy. 

He was a boy with stardust in his veins. 

He opens his eyes. 

“Keith…?”

He’s alive. They both are. 

It makes him happy. It makes him sad.

“You saved me.”

“We saved each other.” 

The stardust stays with him until he can feel his body again. Heavy. Stiff. Cold. 

But the more he wakes, the more he forgets.


	2. Afterwards

They’re arguing about whether to leave him in the healing pod or not. Shiro can’t follow the conversation and he doesn’t really care about the outcome. He just wants to sleep.

And he wants Keith to keep holding him. 

Right now, Keith is next to the pod, his hand on Shiro’s shoulder, but Shiro can barely feel it through his paladin armor. He wants Keith to come closer, to drape himself across Shiro’s chest and cradle his head, like he had just a few minutes ago. The weight, the touch, the smell of him--after so long in the void, without a body, everything felt so strange, so intimate and intrusive and--yes, frightening. 

Shiro wants more of it.  

Keith notices his eyelids flickering. Of course he does. He leans down to whisper into Shiro’s ear--his breath warm and shocking and too-close-but-closer-please--

“Rest, Shiro.”

The words buzz through him like a warm shot of whiskey. 

“I’ll be here when you wake up.” 

Shiro sleeps, and dreams of stars. 

When he wakes again it’s into a cavity of black and violet, deep shadows and unearthly lights. 

The void. 

He’s back in the void. 

In desperation, he calls out the first name that comes to him:

“KEITH!”

Even before he finishes the word he realizes--this isn’t the void. It’s the Black Lion’s storage hold. 

He’s out. 

He’s safe. 

It’s okay. 

He hears a clatter of booted feet on the gangplank. 

Then Keith is there. 

Lit only by the violet emergency lights along the lion’s bulkheads, he glows like a celestial being, a protective angel. Shiro can only stare. 

“Shiro,” he says. “What’s wrong?” 

Shame burns on Shiro’s skin, the sensation made even more unbearable by its sheer, intrusive corporealness. Not having a body did have a few advantages. 

“Sorry,” he rasps, hating the sound and feel of his own voice. “I thought...I was back…” 

He doesn’t want to say it. It’s too pathetic, too sad. 

“Hey.” 

Keith’s voice is soft, low. He’s trying to be calming; he can’t possibly know that that sandpaper voice singing through Shiro’s ears is anything but.

Shiro can’t look at him. 

When Keith’s hand touches Shiro’s cheek, he jumps. 

The touch is as shocking as a slap, as unsettling as a tickle. Warm and rough and slightly sweaty, it scrapes against the stubble itching his cheeks. It rattles his bones. 

Keith pulls his hand away immediately--

And that is worse.

Shiro lifts his hand and catches Keith’s, guides it back to his cheek. 

Over the soft hum of the engines he hears Keith’s exhale. The thin mattress beneath him creaks as Keith sits down on the edge of it, his hand never leaving Shiro’s cheek. His thumb rubs back and forth across the jut of Shiro’s cheekbone.

“Shiro,” he mutters. “It’s okay.”

And there, in the half-darkness, Shiro almost believes him. 


	3. The Journey Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith moves first.
> 
> “Shiro,” he says, a crease in his forehead as he takes a step forward. “You never ask for anything, but I need you to ask for this. If you want it. And if you don’t, that’s okay. Just… just ask.”
> 
> Shiro stands his ground, but his blood runs cold. “Ask for what?” he says hoarsely, to buy time.
> 
> Keith just looks at him, a bit of the old impatient fiery Keith simmering through his hard-fought patient composure.
> 
> “Stop pretending you don’t remember me telling you I love you.”

He is deadweight, minus the “dead.” 

It’s almost funny. He would smile, if he could remember which muscles are in charge of forming the desired shape. 

The team is operating exactly as he hoped they would without him. Keith is the Black Paladin, Lance the Red, Allura the Blue. It’s as it always should have been. He can comfort himself, with a sort of deathbed pride, that he had some small part to play in shaping the team. 

But now he’s overstayed his welcome. 

Damn his principles. 

There’s another problem. 

When he sleeps--and he sleeps all the time, can barely find the strength to surface for more than a few minutes before he’s slipping under again--he finds memories that both do and don’t belong to him. 

Memories accumulated by this body, stored in the grey matter of this brain. 

The clone’s memories. 

_ I love you. _

And before that:

_ The Red Paladin’s connection to you runs deep. Deeper than the others… It leaves him vulnerable.  _

_ You will exploit this weakness.  _

He did exploit that weakness. And every day that he still lives, he continues to do so.

In his dreams he dangles over the precipice of space, his feet swinging in thin atmosphere, his flesh wrist aching in Keith’s viselike grasp. He hears the shear of Keith’s dagger slipping through with their combined weight. He feels the cut-loose lurch of freefall.

He relives, over and over again, the lengths Keith went to keep him alive. To save him. 

It terrifies him. 

Shiro almost destroyed Voltron, all because he wouldn’t die when he should have. 

He needs to talk to Keith. 

This can’t keep happening. 

He wakes to the feeling that he’s not alone. 

Keith is there, rifling through a heap of loose supplies piled on the opposite side of the narrow cargo hold. He picks up a thermal blanket, then goes back to the door leading up to the cockpit. 

“Hey.” 

Shiro’s voice feels foreign in his own chest, alien and rough. He flinches, repulsed. 

Keith doesn’t flinch. He pauses in the doorway, surprised. “I thought you were asleep.” 

“I sleep too much,” Shiro grunts. 

Keith smirks. “You sleep enough. Maybe a little less than enough.” 

A tangle of shame and relief catch Shiro’s tongue. He pushes it down. “I thought you might want to talk.” 

Is that fear in Keith’s eyes? It’s gone in a moment as he turns to give Shiro his full attention, sits down on the narrow cot beside him. 

“Yeah,” he says, his voice a devastating scrape on Shiro’s heart. “I want to talk. Didn’t think you were up to it yet, though.” 

The purple lowlights shine in Keith’s black hair and dark eyes, mask the bruise on his face but can’t hide the burn that curves up his cheek. 

The scar Shiro gave him. 

He tries to focus on it, use it as a talisman to steel himself, but Keith notices. Shiro flinches, oversensitive, as Keith’s calloused fingers brush the sides of his face, forces him to meet Keith’s eyes. 

Shiro swallows. 

“Maybe I’m… maybe I’m not up to it yet,” he says hoarsely, weakly. 

Keith smiles, so gentle and calm. Gone is the boy with eyes like a meteor on a collision course. Keith has found his orbit. The thought makes Shiro’s eyes flutter shut as Keith drags blunt fingernails through his hair. “Go back to sleep, Shiro. Call me if you need me.”

And for once his exhausted body takes pity on him, and he sinks into dreamless sleep as Keith slips out of the room.

* * *

 

They make camp on a planet of pink grass and green skies, the lions forming a protective circle with their heads facing in and the team sitting against their paws.  It’s the first natural air Shiro has breathed since they drew him out of the Black Lion. 

He tried to make himself useful but they all shooed him away. So now he leans against Black’s paw, waiting for the food to cook and for Keith and Lance to come back from their patrol. At first the metal is uncomfortable, but as his mind drifts and he thinks about the things he’ll need to say to Keith --  _ Your connection leaves him vulnerable _ \-- it’s as if the metal becomes softer. Like real fur, rising and falling with real breath.

That’s when he notices the purring in the back of his mind. Familiar, but a lifetime removed from him. The clone never felt this purring. 

Shiro cranes his head to look up at the inscrutable metal lion above him. 

“Black?” he whispers. 

The lion’s eye gleams. 

Shiro’s vision whites out. A lion pounces, its fangs bared, fur and mane pale and burning like a star. Shiro jumps so hard his head clangs against Black’s paw. It’s in his mind, it has to be, but for a second he can feel hot breath across his face. 

Black hasn’t moved, but Shiro senses something from her that he’s never felt before. Something like awe. Respect. Deference. The warm prickle of her consciousness in Shiro’s mind retreats as the purring recedes, then fades away.

The white lion still prowls in the edges of his mind. It doesn’t claim the place Black used to occupy. It just watches. 

“Shiro?”

Shiro’s eyes fly open. Allura is crouched beside him, concerned. “You drifted off. Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Shiro says automatically, then looks up at Black. Tries to reach out with the part of his mind that felt her purr. 

All he feels is the bruise forming on the back of his skull.

“Yeah,” he says again. 

“Good,” Allura says. “Lance called; he and Keith are almost back. We were thinking of playing some Monsters and Mana while we eat. Do you want to join?”

He seizes the normalcy she’s offering with both hands and a half-smile. “Only if I can be a paladin again.”

A clatter from behind them. 

Keith and Lance have emerged through the gap between the Black and Red lions. Keith’s carrying his paladin shield like a bowl and it’s piled high with purple fruits. Lance’s arms are empty, the ground at his feet strewn with greenish firewood. His eyes are wide with horror. 

“You… you remember that?” Lance says, his voice strangled. 

Keith looks bemused, but the other paladins and Coran are suddenly nervous. It takes Shiro another moment to remember why. 

Monsters and Mana is one of the clone’s memories. 

“It just got weird,” Romelle says bluntly. “Why is it weird? What’s going on?”

Allura shoots a little glare at her, then takes a deep, tactful breath. “Shiro,” she says. “We didn’t realize you could remember what the clone experienced.” 

Shiro clenches his teeth. 

Allura places a gentle hand on his shoulder. The ruined one, its stump still bristling with severed wires and sheared metal. “Can you?”

Shiro’s eyes flick to Keith’s. 

_ I love you. _

It hangs in the rosy-tinged air between them. 

“They were fuzzy at first,” Shiro admits. “But… yeah.”

“All of it?” Keith asks. His voice is a smooth scrape, a half-cut diamond. The look in his eyes is unbearable. Shiro averts his gaze.

“I think so.” 

“Well then!” Coran to the rescue. “That saves us time explaining the rules, doesn’t it? How wonderful.  Everybody take a gamepad.” He starts handing out palm-sized orange screens with great enthusiasm. 

“I don’t know the rules,” says Romelle, staring at her screen. “I don’t know what’s going on at all.”

“Nothing is ‘going on,’ Romelle,” Allura says through a clenched-jaw smile. “I’ll teach you and Keith and Krolia how to play while we get our food.” 

Keith sits next to Shiro, close but not touching. Shiro can still feel the warmth radiating from him, almost as strong as the warmth from the fire. It kneads against his oversensitive skin beneath the thin black flight suits they both wear. 

They play Monsters and Mana until the sky fades from pink to blue to familiar star-speckled black. The others do their best to pretend everything is normal. And the weirdest part is, somewhere between the forced smiles and the increasingly ridiculous bosses Coran dreams up, it stops being pretend and starts feeling… right. 

He forgets about the Black Lion’s silence and the starlight teeth prowling in his periphery. He forgets about being a vulnerability. 

Until the game is over. 

Then it all comes rushing back. 

He feels it in his skin, in his veins, a writhing displaced sadness, heavier than ever after an hour or two without it. 

While the others linger around the campfire, enjoying the fresh air and discussing the game, Shiro makes his excuses and slips back up the Black Lion’s gangplank. 

He had forgotten how much it hurt to be alive. 

“You okay?”

Shiro turns around. He hadn’t heard Keith follow him into the Black Lion, but a part of him knew he would. 

And isn’t that the core of the problem?

“Yeah,” Shiro says. He summons all of his strength into a smile. “I’m fine, Keith.” 

Keith crosses his arms, unconvinced. 

They are two starfighters idling in the middle of a dogfight, each waiting to see if the other will attack, or feint, or retreat. 

Keith moves first. 

“Shiro,” he says, a crease in his forehead as he takes a step forward. “You never ask for anything, but I need you to ask for this. If you want it. And if you don’t, that’s okay. Just… just ask.”

Shiro stands his ground, but his blood runs cold. “Ask for what?” he says hoarsely, to buy time. 

Keith just looks at him, a bit of the old impatient fiery Keith simmering through his hard-fought patient composure. 

“Stop pretending you don’t remember me telling you I love you.”

It hangs in the violet air between them. 

Shiro flushes warm, then cold. “...Like a brother?” he asks. Hopes it’s true. Hopes it’s not. 

Keith’s shoulders slump, just a bit, but he doesn’t pull away. “Is that what you want?”

“I want…” 

His throat closes. What he wants doesn’t matter. He’s dead weight, and he needs Keith to cut him loose. 

_ You make him vulnerable. _

“I want to ride with Pidge.” 

Keith’s face is an open book. Shiro can see betrayal, disappointment, the beginnings of a withdrawal--then Keith takes a deep breath. When his eyes meet Shiro’s again, they are soft and gentle. 

_ Patience yields focus.  _

“Okay, Shiro,” Keith says. “Whatever you need.”

* * *

 

Pidge is exactly the kind of company he wants. She stays in the cockpit playing videogames, and he stays in the cargo hold doing one-armed push-ups until his muscles give out beneath him and he’s too exhausted to think. 

Sometimes she tries to talk to him, but her attempts are fumbling and uncertain. 

“Did you and Keith fight or something?” she asks once, while they eat dinner in the cockpit. 

Shiro takes his time chewing his mouthful of food. Pidge, turning pink, fills the silence: 

“Not that it’s my business or anything. Just--if you want to talk, or something…” 

“I wanted to get out of the Black Lion,” Shiro says. “I spent so much time trapped in her consciousness that even being on the physical lion was starting to feel claustrophobic.” 

“Oh. That makes sense.” Pidge looks relieved. She doesn’t question him further. 

Shiro knows that answer will make its way back to Keith. He doubts Keith will believe it. 

Being overlooked by the mysterious Bob confirms Shiro’s belief that he is no longer part of the team. He never believed in self-fulfilling prophecies anyway. 

The more sit-ups Shiro does, the faster they will reach Earth. 

It happens sooner than any of them expect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaah I love writing Keith from Shiro's perspective so muchhhhhh  
> Also Romelle is an icon. Maybe this whole fic was just a very indirect excuse to write her more 🤔


	4. Back on Earth, Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I need your highest-security room,” Shiro tells the officer.
> 
> Romelle cocks her head, confused. “You’re worried about your safety on your home planet?”
> 
> He gives her a tired look. “Not my safety.”
> 
> “Oh.” She gives him a one-over. “If you say so.”

As soon as they reach the Garrison, Shiro surrenders himself to Captain Iverson. 

“Shiro!” Keith’s voice is cutting in his surprise. “What are you doing?”

“I’m a potential security risk,” Shiro says, directing himself, not to the group, but to a confused Iverson. “The Galra have access to this body and can use it to harm the people around me.”

“Not anymore,” Allura says. She’s trying to hide the hurt in her voice, but Shiro hears it. “I fixed that part of your brain.” 

“And Keith cut off the prosthetic arm that was receiving Galra signals,” Shiro agrees. “But parts of it are still in my body.” 

“So we’ll get them out,” Keith says. “Hunk, Pidge?”

“Of course, dude,” Hunk says. 

“We would’ve done it sooner, we just didn’t have the right tools in space!” Pidge sounds mad. 

“I should be isolated until then,” Shiro continues, relentless. “And I can’t be Team Voltron’s priority in the meanwhile.” 

He looks right at Keith as he says this. 

Keith takes his gaze steadily, not buckling. Then--is that a small smile lifting one corner of his thin lips? Shiro can’t tell--Keith has already turned to the rest of the team. 

“Romelle, go with Shiro and make sure he’s secure. Lance and Coran, inspect the defenses. Pidge and Hunk, find out how advanced the Garrison’s tech has gotten since we left. Allura and I will debrief with Iverson.”

He tosses Shiro one last look before he strides away. 

One of Shiro’s former classmates, a man whose name Shiro can’t remember for the life of him but whose uniform now tells the tale of several battles, takes him and Romelle to the Garrison’s residential wing. 

“I need your highest-security room,” Shiro tells the officer. 

Romelle cocks her head, confused. “You’re worried about your safety on your home planet?”

He gives her a tired look. “Not my safety.” 

“Oh.” She gives him a one-over. “If you say so.” 

“We’ll post a guard outside the quarters,” the officer tells him. 

The room he’s taken to is small but soothingly familiar, with its white walls and orange accents. He thanks the officer as he steps inside. 

“Sure,” says the officer, suddenly uncomfortable. “And… I’m sorry about Adam.” 

“Oh.” Shiro scratches his head, surprised. Their breakup was almost five years ago, by Earth’s time. To him it feels like a lifetime ago. Surely Adam feels the same. “Thanks.”

Speaking of Adam--

Before Shiro can ask about him, the officer nods awkwardly, and hits the switch to close the door. As it slides shut, Romelle slips inside.  

Shiro frowns as the door clicks behind her. “You don’t have to stay.” 

“Keith told me to make sure you’re secure.” 

“You did.” 

“No I made you secure, like  _ you  _ asked me.” 

Shiro frowns. “I’m missing something.”

Romelle touches her chin in confusion. “Secure… secure…  Oh, I see! It’s a translation issue.” She tapped the tiny Altean translator in her ear. “The Earthling word ‘see-qure’--” and when she says it this time Shiro can tell it’s her real voice saying it instead of a translated representation-- “can mean both ‘wamblee’ and ‘kajaine’ in Altaean. One means the subject feels secure and protected, the other means others are protected from the subject. Keith told me to make sure you’re wamblee.”

“Meaning he asked you to make sure I feel secure and protected,” Shiro says. He feels tired, so tired.

“Exactly!” Romelle clasps her hands. “So, do you feel wamblee?”

Shiro sighs. “I’m sure you have something more important to be doing.” 

“Wow, you’re relentless.” Romelle claps her hands together under her nose. “Okay, how’s this: if I leave now I’ll have to go meet back up with the others, which means meeting a ton of new people whose names I’ll never remember, and a bunch of them have families here, which will just remind me about my family and how much I miss them, and I’ll have to eat some weird food that is  _ fine _ but just  _ weird  _ and I’ll have to say ‘wow, it’s great, I love Earth culture’ even though what I want to say is, ‘this seems gross, but I’ll eat it because I don’t want to hurt your feelings’ because if I say that, Allura will get mad at me. 

“...Or, I could stay here with you for a little bit longer.” She grins. 

Shiro laughs in spite of himself. “I didn’t know you felt that way.” 

“Really? I didn’t think I was being subtle about it.”

“Well, I’d love it if you stayed a while longer.” 

“Why, thank you, Shiro!” She sits down on the floor with an exaggerated flop, then fixes her gaze back on his face. “So…” 

He sits on the bed. “So?”

“So, did my saying how I feel make you want to share how you feel?”

He massages the bridge of his nose, but can’t help the crooked smile that lifts his lips. “Smooth.” 

She shrugs. “Worth a shot. Tell me about Earth. How many moons do you have?”

It takes a long time to convince her that yes, Earth really only has one moon. He can’t tell if her disbelief is genuine or if she’s just killing time, and he can’t bring himself to care. 


	5. Back on Earth, Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro gets bad news, a new arm, and an afternoon with Allura.

Pidge and Hunk never fail to impress him. 

Less than forty-eight hours back on Earth, and now Shiro’s lying on an operating table, shivering under the light sheen of sweat on his body and waiting for the anesthesia to kick in. 

On a tray beside the table are the implements they’ll use to excavate the wreck of his Galra arm from his mutilated shoulder. 

He stares at them, thinking about metal screws and shards coming out of his flesh like splinters, about wires and synthetic neurons dripping blood as they unravel from his body like a loose thread in a sweater. 

“Are you okay?”

Shiro jumps. Tries to sit up on instinct. Catches himself, because it’s Hunk, his broad, warm face showing gentle concern. 

“I’m fine,” Shiro says automatically. 

Hunk’s smile is the kindest  _ yeah, right _ Shiro’s ever seen. 

“What were you thinking about?”

_ Splinters and loose threads.  _ Shiro subdues a mortified flush creeping up his cheeks.  _ What’s wrong with me? _

“Nothing,” he says. 

“Uh-huh,” says Hunk. He glances at a monitor whose readout Shiro can’t see. “What have you been up to the past few days?”

“Debriefing with Iverson,” Shiro answers promptly. “Giving the Garrison a full report of our actions as Paladins of Voltron.”  

“Of course you were,” Hunk sighs. Shiro shoots him a quizzical look. Hunk waves his hand, prompting. “Anything else?”

\-- _ You make him vulnerable-- _

_ \--Splinters and loose threads, blood-spattered-- _

_ \--You make him vulnerable-- _

Shiro swallows, throat suddenly dry. “Worked out,” he says hoarsely. 

“Okay, yeah,” Hunk says. “Go with that. Tell me about that.” 

“Uh. Sit-ups. Squats. Pushups, one-armed.” 

“Hey, Hunk?” It’s Pidge, across the room, hunched over the huge white prosthetic that will become Shiro’s new right arm. “Could you come here for a sec?”

“You got it.” Hunk pats Shiro’s shoulder. “Just go through some of those exercises in your head. You’ll have two arms before you know it.” 

He moves away. 

Shiro glances at the IV in his arm. He thinks about sit-ups. And squats. And one-armed push-ups. And all the other ways he strained his muscles to keep his mind busy. 

So busy that he couldn’t think. 

Couldn’t think about--

The memory is slippery. It slinks in before he can stop it.

His first morning on Earth. Oh-six-hundred hours. 

Iverson, his gruff voice an offering. “Before we start… My condolences for Adam.” 

Shiro, static-brained, uncomprehending. “What.”

The look of controlled horror on Iverson’s face. “No one told you?”

And that’s when the memory, slick and coiling, darts away from him. Retreats past the heliopause of his awareness. 

If it stayed, he’d have to remember. 

Shiro glances at the IV drip. Glad for the anesthetic in his blood. The shadows vignetting around his sight. 

If not for this, he would’ve had to remember. 

Have to remember what happened next. 

How he felt when Iverson said-- 

“Adam Watson died. Defending Earth.” 

He’d have to remember the jealousy. 

_ If only that was me… _

_ Everything would be easier if I had died along with Adam. _

He’d have to think about how he doesn’t recognize himself anymore. Can’t find the electric stubbornness that kept him alive in the arena. This feels like a sickness. Like a new flavor of alien possession. 

But--maybe worst of all--

He’d have to search for the words to disagree. 

He’d have to admit he can’t find them. 

_ Everyone I love would be better off if I was dead.  _

Good thing he’s not thinking about any of this. 

* * *

 

Shiro hadn’t realized how painful the old arm was until the new one is joined to his torso, its detached forearm hovering steadily at his side. 

He’s--free? 

_ You still make him vul-- _

One can only do so many push-ups. At least now he can do something more. 

He applies for a position on the Atlas, under the command of battlefield-promoted Admiral Iverson.

But in the meantime, the Garrison points out that Shiro’s debriefing is incomplete. His testimony about Voltron is very thorough, true, but he left out a huge part of it. 

He left out the year before Voltron. The year Shiro was a prisoner of the Galra Empire. 

Shiro misses the meeting. 

Allura finds him at the memorial wall. 

“Hello,” she says. Sits down beside him, draws her knees to her chest. 

“Hey.” Shiro tries to smile. It fails on the launch pad. Flight aborted. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same question.”

Shiro turns his face forward. “I told Iverson I wanted to help, in any way I could. But I can’t fly a Lion, there aren’t any more MFEs for me, and the only maintenance left to do on the Atlas is way over my head. So Iverson asked if the Garrison could debrief me on my time with the Galra.” He grits his teeth, then hangs his head. “I told him I couldn’t remember any of it. But I can. I can remember it now.”

He waits for Allura to say something, to damn him, to swing the axe down on his proffered neck. 

She says nothing. 

So he barrels on. 

“In the void, there was nothing keeping those memories buried. They were just… there, all the time. And when you brought me back… something about transferring a consciousness into a fresh body, I guess… they won’t go back to being buried. So I don’t have any excuse not to talk. I just… don’t want to. I don’t want to tell the Garrison about what I did. I’m a coward.”

“Shiro, no.”

“I am. So instead of torturing myself in the debriefing room, I’m torturing myself here.” He gestures at Adam’s plaque.  

“Shiro, look at me.” 

“Princess--”

She seizes his face in her hands and forces him to meet her gaze. 

“Shiro. Paladin. You have done more than the universe could have ever asked of you. If you wanted to leave now, to put the fight behind you, I would understand.”

His eyes widen. “I don’t want that--”

She smiles. “I know, Shiro. Because you are so marvelously brave. You are. Look at me.”

He had been trying to avert his eyes. He stopped. 

“Shiro…” A note of hesitancy entered her voice. “I had thought it best to be, um, circumspect, about this, but now it seems relevant. When I drew you out of the Black Lion, there were a few moments where your consciousness co-inhabited my body with me. Do you remember?”

He blinks, slowly. “No. Yes. Sort of. It was--a blur.” 

“Well, I saw parts of your life. Including--your captivity.” 

A prickle of cold sweat shivers across Shiro’s entire body. Oh no. She saw… she  _ saw _ …

But she is still holding his face, still touching him. Still smiling a soft, shy smile.

“Perhaps I could… recount some of those experiences to the Garrison for you. That way, your officers would have the intelligence, and you wouldn’t have to relive it.”

“Allura…” Shiro’s mouth is dry. “I’m so sorry.” 

“It’s all right. The memories are terrible, but they can’t hurt me like they do you.” She pats his face, then releases it. “Let me do this for you.”

A hollow laugh echoes out of Shiro’s lungs. “Let you… Princess, you’ve already done so much for me. I can’t even begin to…”

“I feel the same way,” she says firmly. 

“But… my arm… your tiara…” 

“You have fought with me. You saved me. And… you are part of my family.”

She looks so calm, so stately. Like this is all so easy. It’s not easy. It can’t be that easy. 

Shiro shakes his head. “We are… we are not even.”

Now a frown creases her brow. “I don’t care about even.” 

“I’ll…” he looks down at his floating prosthetic. “Princess, I promise I’ll be worthy of the gifts you’ve given me.” 

Allura chuckles. “Don’t be so formal, Shiro. I’ve decided it doesn’t suit your species.”

“But--Princess…”

“Don’t worry about being worthy, Shiro. Just be gumbleflart.”

He blinks. “Excuse me?”

She cocks her head. “Does that word not translate? It’s an Altean word. It means… a being, a person, but it’s more than that. It’s an acknowledgement that all beings are beautiful and alive and precious, not because of what they do or don’t do, but just because they live, because they exist. I believe the word literally means something like ‘happy sad stardust.’”

A laugh bursts out of Shiro’s chest. At least he thinks it’s a laugh. It’s rough and unexpected. His eyes prickle.  He rubs a hand over them. 

“Oh, dear,” Allura says. “Are you all right?”

“I just…” Another laugh. God, he hopes it’s a laugh. “That’s…”

_ That’s not me. I’m not... gumbleflart? Seriously?  _

_...I could be.  _

_ Am I? _

He aches with how bad he wants to be.

Fuck, is he crying? He tries to breathe. Remembers his flight training. Take deep breaths, count to ten. He gets as far as “one” when another sob punches through him, and then he can’t stop, can’t hold it in. 

It’s been years. A literal lifetime. 

Allura slings an arm over his shoulder, pats him a bit awkwardly on the nape of the neck. “There, there. It’s all right. You’re gumbleflart, Shiro. You’re gumbleflart.” 


	6. The Battle for Earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance snorts. “You and Keith. Would it kill you to take your time eating for once?”  
> “They do say the third time’s the charm,” Shiro says mildly between sporkfuls.   
> “I don’t get it--Oh. Jesus Christ, Shiro.”  
> Allura shakes her spork at him. “That is not funny, Shiro.”  
> “Yes, Princess.”  
> It's almost a relief when the fighting starts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long delay! Have a long chapter as repayment :)   
> I changed a few things from the show: for example, Shiro is not made captain of the Atlas (at least right away!)

Shiro wakes at 4 am the next morning feeling hollowed-out and leached dry, his face puffy and his brain full of static. He pushes it away--he’s had worse mornings--and starts his routine: reaches for the alarm clock, lets his hand hover over the silent device--it buzzes--he switches it off and rises without thinking. 

He makes it two steps from the bed before the autopilot glitches. 

The static is loud. Long-range sensors are down. But at the periphery he can taste the slippery thoughts-- _ should have been me-- _ no longer slippery, no longer nimble, but hollow like long-forgotten crash sites, their chassis stripped and rusted. 

He reboots the autopilot. Allura had modified his flight plan, hadn’t she? A data file called Gumbleflart. The datachip is here but the format is incompatible. Error, error. 

Nothing for it but to reset to an earlier version of autopilot and reboot again. 

It works for a while--enough to dress himself and launch the shaving sequence--but this version has bugs of its own. He finds himself looking in the mirror as he shaves--the scar and white hair like a one-two punch, the red eyes and bags an afterthought. The unsanctioned action causes another catastrophic autopilot error that triggers two unsanctioned thoughts. 

One: Is it possible to be hung over just from crying? 

Two: Am I always going to be like this? 

  
  


That morning, Admiral Sanda grants Shiro’s request to serve on the Atlas. He’s given the rank of Lieutenant and the position of second helmsman. When the counterattack is sprung, he will serve on the ship’s bridge under Sanda’s command. 

Allura insists on celebrating, which in this case means sneaking some nunvil into the mess hall that night. 

As soon as they enter the long, crowded dining hall, Shiro and Keith’s eyes meet. 

It’s uncanny, really. Unfair. 

Keith sits at a table across from Lance, two half-finished trays of freeze-dried astronaut food between them. Lance turns around to see what Keith’s looking at, and his face goes a bit pink at the sight of Allura. 

Allura waves at them, gesturing commandingly for them to  _ stay there, we’ll come sit with you,  _ before she and Shiro get in line for food. 

“Have you spoken to Keith lately?” Allura asks him as they pick up trays. 

“Yeah, he’s fine,” Shiro says easily. “By the way, what’s this I hear about you and Lance?”

“Are you trying to change the subject?”

His mouth quirks at the corners. “Is it working?”

She arches an eyebrow, imperious. “Shiro, I am a princess, trained from birth in the fine art of conversation.” 

For a moment, they regard each other, Allura coldly, Shiro sheepishly. Then Allura giggles. 

“Yes, it’s working. What should I do? How do humans court each other?”

Shiro laughs in relief, raises his hands. “You’re asking the wrong guy.”

“Well, should I ask him out? Or should I encourage him to ask me out? What’s the protocol here?”

“Either is fine. But I think you should ask him.”

“Should I?”

“Yeah, it’ll be good for him.” 

When they exit the line with full trays, Lance is sitting alone. 

Shiro’s stomach plummets. He ignores the look Allura cuts him, and follows her to the table. 

“Keith had to go,” Lance says without prompting. He looks anxiously at Shiro. “I tried to get him to stay, but he said he had stuff to do.” 

“Sounds good,” Shiro says, light and easy. He swings his leg over the bench and sits in Keith’s vacated spot, leaving Allura to take the seat next to Lance. “I can’t stay either. I need to get in some more time in the Atlas sim.” 

Lance snorts as he watches Shiro shovel lasagna into his mouth. “You and Keith. Would it kill you to take your time eating for once?”

“They do say the third time’s the charm,” Shiro says mildly between sporkfuls. 

“I don’t get it--Oh. Jesus Christ, Shiro.”

Allura shakes her spork at him. “That is  _ not  _ funny, Shiro.”

“Yes, Princess.” Shiro stops shoveling food into his mouth just long enough to nod deferentially at her. 

Five minutes later he’s in the training sim. 

  
  


It’s almost a relief when the fighting starts. 

Everything goes wrong right away, of course. Voltron scrambles before Shiro can see any of them off--before he can see Keith--

_ Vulnerable--vulnerable _ \-- _ you make him-- _

Sanda is nowhere to be found so Iverson takes command of the Atlas, but as the enormous ship still lacks the power to take off, Shiro is an acting helmsman without a helm. 

The comms crackle with explosions and Voltron’s chatter. The Atlas bridge is chaos. Shiro tries to help. He keeps his voice calm and authoritative even as his pulse tries to choke him. 

It’s Coran who gets the ship up in the end, Coran and the crystal remains of the Castle Ship, and though Shiro was useless, didn’t help at all, the takeoff zings through him just like takeoffs always did, wild and proud, white-hot like a star and roaring, teeth bared, claws out--

An explosion rocks the Atlas and Shiro snaps out of it. He quickly retakes his helmsman’s seat. 

The battle unfolds like the most catastrophic game of chess: every decision made in half a second or not at all, every movement slow and lumbering and made with extraordinary effort; a game in which Shiro is not a player, but just the hand moving the pieces,  fighting atmosphere and gravity to maneuver the enormous ship where Iverson wants it. 

And when Sendak activates the Zaiforge Cannon and aims it at Earth, there is only one move for the Atlas to make--to place itself in the line of fire. 

Now Shiro has nothing to do but hold position as the rest of the bridge scrambles to divert every bit of power to the shields. Voltron is pinned down, Atlas is checkmated--and Shiro is useless. 

Unless--

“Captain Iverson,” he says. “I can infiltrate Sendak’s flagship, disable the cannons.” 

Iverson asks Holt, “Is it possible?”

“Technically,” Holt says, “But--”

“I can do it,” says Shiro. “Just don’t tell Voltron until I give the signal. In case the Galra compromised our comms.”

Coran looks up. “That’s not--”

“We can’t take that chance.” 

Iverson turns to Shiro with a face devoid of hope. 

“Do it,” he says. 

At least someone around here recognizes Shiro as expendable. 

It’s not that he’s surprised it worked. It’s that he’s surprised when at the end of it--brain hijacking and all--he’s still alive. 

Guess that means he has to escape now. 

As ever, it’s the principle of the thing. 

His plan is to exit the ship and drift in low orbit until someone can pick him up. But the ship’s losing altitude at a rate faster than he expected--almost as if the captain has already abandoned the ship. Shiro will have to jump, relying on his jetpack and a parachute tucked into his suit to cushion the fall. 

Fighting gravity and wind, he drags himself to the Galra cruiser’s edge, calculating mass and velocity in his head. He’ll have to jump now to get clear enough of the ship’s wreckage--

A shadow falls over him. 

“I knew it!” Even over the roaring wind, Shiro recognizes that voice. 

He turns. 

Sendak’s grin is wide and sharp, his prosthetic eye a lurid red against the sizzling orange sky. 

“The broken soldier.” 

Panic jangles against the memory of panic as Shiro sizes up his opponent. Sendak is taller, stronger, almost as fast, his prosthetic far more lethal.

But this time something is different. 

This time, shiro doesn’t need to beat Sendak. 

He just needs to stall him long enough for gravity to take care of the rest. 

He raises his prosthetic, and attacks. 

Sendak fights with cold, focused fury, every strike a killing blow. But he’s rigid, inflexible, the shaking ship constantly undermining his leaden footwork, and it’s easy for Shiro to duck and dodge, attacking only often enough to hold Sendak’s attention. 

Himself for Sendak. The broken soldier for the Galra Empire’s most feared general. 

It’s an easy trade. 

_ Sorry, Keith… It’s for the best. _

But Sendak… he isn’t even trying to get away. He should have figured out Shiro’s plan right away, surely he’s figured it out by now, but when Shiro gets him into an arm lock Sendak doesn’t even try to break out; he just bears down on Shiro’s grip, holding them both in place. Now it’s Shiro struggling to get free, to get away. 

Sendak bears his teeth in a smirk. “They will sing my praises in the flagship halls tonight.”

The words hit him like a sudden reversal. 

Because Keith’s good estimation, Shiro can ignore. Keith is biased. But if Sendak, of all people, thinks Shiro is worth all this...

Shiro looks up. “That’s a lot of trouble for just one broken soldier.”

Sendak falters, for just a moment. 

It’s enough. 

Shiro throws himself forward, using every inch of leverage from his floating arm to fling Sendak away. 

The Galra general hits the ship’s hull hard, bounces, and slips over the edge. 

There’s roaring in Shiro’s ears. It’s white-hot and sharp. It must be the wind. 

The astrophysicist takes over. It’s too late to jump from the ship--at this velocity he won’t get clear of the crash. 

Shiro taps his earpiece once, switching the line to just the Voltron network. “Guys,” he gasps.

“Shiro!” Keith’s voice is strained. “Atlas said you left the bridge.”

“I need some help.” He expected the words to feel strange or ugly on his tongue. But instead, saying it to these five people is as easy as breathing. 

The reply is instant. 

“Where are you?”

“On top of the Galra flagship. Sendak’s here too.”

“WHAT?” Hunk yelps. 

Keith’s voice doesn’t waver. “We’re coming, Shiro, just hang on.”

Relief floods his body, softening the edges of his adrenaline. 

His friends are coming for him. 

Keith is coming for him. 

Shiro just has to survive the crash, first. 

He laughs out loud as he tightens his helmet. 

When Voltron makes contact with the plummeting Galra ship, the jolt almost knocks Shiro free. He bears down, using his prosthetic to gouge handholds into the hull as Voltron presses against the ship from underneath, slowing its descent like Superman catching a plane. He can feel the deceleration in his popping ears. 

“Okay, Shiro, jump clear on my mark,” Hunk shouts. “Now!”

Shiro jumps. 

His jetpack blunts the worst of the momentum but he still lands hard, all wind ejected from his lungs, arms and legs tucked tight as he rolls, and rolls, and rolls. 

He stops on his back, gasping for air, pulls off his helmet with the last of his strength, gets a lungful of dust. 

He’s not alone. 

Weakly, Shiro lifts his head to see--Sendak. Twenty meters away. Prosthetic arm raised and glowing, poised for the strike. 

Shiro tries to move. His body screams in protest. Too slow--

A shadow draws over them. The Black Lion. Its bulk blotting out the sun.

And when it passes, it leaves a dark shape silhouetted against the blazing Arizona sky. 

A figure curled into a leap, brandishing a sword, the blade aimed downward. 

Keith. 

For a moment, he seems to hover, as if suspended by a gravity all his own. 

He is blinding. 

A shadow of movement in the corner of Shiro’s eye jolts him back to the present. Sendak, turning to intercept this comet of a man. 

Sendak’s hulking arm bats Keith’s sword out of the way at the last moment. Keith lands in a tuck and roll, springs back to his feet, boots skidding in the sand. 

Shiro lurches to his feet just as Sendak’s arm rockets forward again, smashes like a battering ram into Keith’s chest. 

“No!”

Keith’s body lurches backward, kept from falling by the three metal claws clamped around his chest 

Roaring in triumph, Sendak lifts his shoulder, sending his arm into the air and Keith with it. 

Keith’s sword dangles in his grip, flickers from one hand to the other, but Sendak’s grip tightens, preventing him from landing a blow. The sword reverts into a bayard, dangling from his fingers. 

“Keith!” 

Shiro lunges toward them without a plan. 

Face screwed up in pain, Keith’s eyes find Shiro’s. 

The bayard disappears from Keith’s hand. 

And Shiro feels the weight of it in his palm as it reappears in his own grip. 

He raises the bayard--its curved hilt pure white now instead of patterned black, but no time to dwell on that--it transforms into a shimmering greatsword, suddenly so heavy Shiro has to hold it with two hands. 

Keith lets out a strangled yell as, with a terrible snap, Sendak’s claw squeezes cracks into his breastplate.

Sendak half-turns--

A scream gouges Shiro’s throat as he brings the greatsword down on Sendak’s metal shoulder. 

Sparks fly. Blood sprays. Keith falls to the ground as Sendak bellows in pain. 

Shiro doesn’t stop. He pivots, heel planted in the Arizona dirt, and brings the blade around in a horizontal sweep.

Sendak’s head spins into the air. 

The bayard hits the ground with a thunk as Shiro leaps over Sendak’s body to where Keith lies crumpled in a heap. 

Not breathing. 

“Keith!”

Shiro pulls him into his arms. Keith’s face is screwed up in pain. Their eyes lock--then Keith rasps in a breath. Holds it, like he can't remember what to do next. Hisses it out like it was punched out of him. Gulps in another. 

Shiro rocks him as gently as possible with shaking arms. Relief burning like whiskey in his veins.

_ Tell him.  _

Keith's eyes find his again. He coughs. 

_ Tell him.  _

The words are on the tip of Shiro's tongue. He wants to say it. Another man would be able to say it, as effortlessly as Keith deserves. Another man wouldn’t be able to help himself, would let the words spill out of his mouth. 

But for Shiro, the words cling to his throat like they want to strangle him.

“Shiro,” Keith rasps. He's getting his breath back. “Th-thanks.” He stirs in Shiro's arms. Making an effort to get up. 

The moment is leaving him. Shiro tastes panic in the back of his throat. 

Like an asteroid pulled out of terminal orbit by a rogue gravity, Shiro wrests himself into a new trajectory. 

“Keith, I love you.”

Keith stops breathing again.

It sends Shiro's heart into a tailspin. “I'm sorry it took me so long to say it. I love you, too.” 

Keith--he  _ laughs.  _ A hoarse, breathless chuckle. “I love you too, Shiro.” His hand finds Shiro’s cheek, and he lifts his head. 

Shiro bends down to meet him. Pauses with his face barely an inch from Keith’s. Then bends the rest of the way. 

Keith’s lips are dry and chapped. Gentle but clumsy. Shiro can taste the coppery tang of blood. He wonders if Keith can feel him shaking. 

A loud sniffle sounds over the comms. 

“Goddamnit, Hunk!” comes Pidge’s voice. “Mute yourself!”

“I’m sorry, I forgot!” Hunk wails. “It’s just… so nice!” 

Keith pulls his head back. Shiro lets him go reluctantly, keeping Keith’s lower lip in his mouth until the last possible moment which earns him a voiceless grunt of pleasure before Keith says: “You guys heard all of that?”

“Roger that,” Lance says, the grin evident in his voice. 

“But it was only us!” Allura hurries to say. “Just the private Voltron channel.” 

“Took you long enough,” Pidge snickers. 

“Pidge,” Keith says warningly, shooting a quick look at Shiro. 

And there is a twist of guilt there, guilt that it did take him so long, but the feeling is so much smaller than the joy filling up his chest that it can barely hurt him. 

Shiro doesn’t know how to say any of this, so he just strokes Keith’s scar with a thumb and kisses him again. 

“Uh, guys?” Lance is using his shrill, panicky voice. “I’d love to keep making fun of you, but we really need you both back in the air ASAP.” 

They get up in a tangle of limbs, unsure of who is supporting who. 

“You good to fly?” Shiro asks. 

“I’m good,” Keith replies. “Just a little bruised. I’ll give you a lift back to the Atlas.” 

But he pauses, for just a moment, a little lopsided grin on his face, and seizes Shiro by the hair to drag his head down into one more kiss. 

  
  


As soon as Shiro sets foot on the Atlas, he knows something’s different. 

The ship  _ hums.  _

No--it  _ roars.  _

It’s in his head, proud and ancient and white-hot--and pleased _.  _

The others notice, too. 

As soon as Shiro limps onto the bridge, Iverson snaps to attention. “I resign as captain effective immediately,” he says. “I--I don’t know why.” 

“I do,” Shiro says. “It’s the White Lion.” 

“Captain,” says Veronica. “We’ve got another bogey. It’s--it’s like another Voltron.”

Shiro looks at Iverson. Iverson nods. 

“Take it away, Captain Shirogane.” 

Shiro isn’t surprised when the Atlas starts to transform around them, its every wire and bulkhead responding to his will like a lion preparing itself to pounce. Some part of him even expected it. 

But he didn’t expect to see Voltron plummet to Earth like shooting stars. 

_ Keith!  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the weird pacing; I was trying to skip over stuff in the show to get to the parts I wanted to change. Please let me know what you think :)


	7. The Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They kiss lazily, as if the two of them have nowhere to go. and maybe, for the first time in either of their lives, that’s true. Nowhere to go, no roles to play, nothing to do--nothing they can do--but kiss, and breathe in each other’s scent.  
> He brushes their nose together, then nibbles on the side of Keith’s jaw. “Baby,” he breathes, revelling in the way Keith’s whole body shivers at the touch of his breath. “Can I call you that?”  
> Keith’s whole face is red. “Yes.  
> “Good.” Shiro goes back to kissing his jaw. “You can call me that too. If you want.”  
> When Keith doesn’t respond, Shiro lifts his head. “You don’t have to.”  
> “I want to.” Keith’s eyes are dark, his flush well on his way down his neck. “I’ll… try,” he says gruffly. “It doesn’t feel easy. I’ll work on it.”

It’s been six weeks since Shiro watched the Lions fall to Earth like shooting stars. Six weeks since he stood on the ash-strewn earth between the Black Lion’s paws as a rescue crew carried Keith out of the cockpit in a medical stretcher. Keith’s face was gray, his hair matted with blood, the cracks in his armor longer and deeper.  
Since then, Pidge, Allura, Lance and Hunk have been released from the hospital.

  
But Keith still sleeps.

  
Shiro stays with him at all hours. When the Garrison asks him to resume his duties as a captain, Shiro ignores them. The Earth is saved; what’s the point of anything else, without--

  
It’s like being back in the Galra cell again. The endless waiting. Except this time the lock on the door is Keith: his fragile breaths, the gentle beeping of his many monitors, the musky stale smell of his hair.

  
They’re having a victory memorial next week. Iverson asked Shiro to speak at it. Shiro laughed in his face.  
He thought they would leave him alone with Keith after that. He’s half-right. Iverson doesn’t come back.

  
But Allura does. He can tell it’s her without looking up.

  
“Has there been any change?” she asks.

  
He shakes his head.

  
Allura sighs and puts a hand on Shiro’s shoulder.

“Hunk’s going to do the speech.”

Shiro has no feelings about this.

Allura goes on, gently probing her way toward a conversation. “Between you and me, they asked me, but I thought it would be best to have a Human. And I think

Hunk could make an excellent diplomat. He just needs a bit of confidence.”

Shiro has no feelings about this.

“I hope you’ll come to the memorial?” she asks. “It would mean a lot for people to see you. It would mean a lot for Hunk and Lance and Pidge and I to see you.”

Shiro tries to find it in him to feel something about this. It’s a half-hearted effort. He finds nothing.

Allura crouches down beside him, one hand on Keith’s mattress to steady herself, forces him to meet her eyes. “Shiro. Please say something.”

He has nothing to say. What is there to say? “I can’t--”

“You can.” She grasps his hands. “No matter what happens, you can.”

He pulls his hands free. “Don’t say that--”

“Perhaps it’s time to discuss it--”

“You’ve given up on him!”

“Shiro, look at me.”

He doesn’t want to. But there’s a part of him conditioned to obey orders. He stifles this part of him. Then forces himself to do it anyway.

Allura’s eyes are full of tears. “I would do anything for Keith. And I would do anything for you, too, Shiro.”

He says, helplessly: “If he--” Under his skin is a starless galaxy, dark and empty. “What would I do?”

Allura takes his hand in both of hers. “I don’t know,” she admits, her voice quavering but strong and warm. “I just know this: No matter what, you will be happy again, Shiro. You will be sad again, too, but you will be happy. Gumbleflart, Shiro. Remember.”

 

Shiro wasn’t going to go to the victory memorial. What does he have to celebrate? But then the morning of the event, Krolia arrives, and she deserves some time alone with her son.

So Shiro goes. He stands in the crowd alongside Pidge and Allura and Lance as Hunk takes the stage beside a wall of photos of the people lost to the Galra. Adam’s picture is there. Keith’s isn’t.

Hunk taps the microphone. “Uh. Hi, everybody.”

“Oh boy,” Pidge mutters. “This is gonna be a disaster.”

“Shut up!” Lance elbows her, without taking his eyes off Hunk. “Let him get warmed up.”

Shiro catches Allura looking fondly at Lance. She notices his gaze and blushes. Shiro smiles.

It's his first real smile since Voltron fell out of the sky.

Hunk continues: “I’ve heard a lot of people say lately that we should count our blessings. Because hey, it could have been worse, right? We could have lost a lot more people, Earth could still be a Galra colony--Earth could even be space dust right now. We came pretty close! We should count our blessings, right? No matter how bad it is, just think--it could have been worse.”

An uncomfortable murmur passes over the crowd.

Lance crosses his arms. “Whe-e-e-re ya going with this, buddy?”

Hunk, for once, looks unfazed. “But, see, the thing is--I don’t want to count my blessings. I want the people we lost back. I want it to be like it was before Sendak ever got to Earth. We may not be space dust right now, but-- ‘not being space dust’ should be a low bar, right?

“But, but I don’t get to have those things. None of us do. So if you came out today looking for me to make the pain of this invasion go away… I can’t. I can hop in a robot space lion and punch bad guys all day, but I can’t make all this wrong right again. I wish I could.

“So I don’t know what to say here, other than: I’m here with you. We’re here together. We’re here together and there’s so much bad in the world that we have to--we need to find ways to create little pockets of good. That’s how we’ll keep going. By being there for each other. By acknowledging all that we’ve lost, and protecting what we still have--not just protecting it, but treasuring it, loving it like we’ve never loved before--and, together, doing the work to make something new.

“So, uh.” For the first time, Hunk falters. “I hope I haven’t been too much of a bummer.”  
Beside Shiro, Lance snorts. It’s a wet snort; he’s crying into Allura’s hair while she cries into his shoulder.

“So, the last thing I want to say is just this: since I became a paladin of Voltron, I’ve been more scared, angry and sad than I’ve ever been in my life. There’s been plenty of times where I wished I was somewhere else, that none of this was happening. But there’s also been good stuff. Saving someone, being saved, sharing a meal in the cold emptiness of space… These good times don’t erase the bad stuff, but they’re how I get through it. They’re what makes it all worth it. One small moment of joy gets me through all the pain. Even in the midst of so much pain, there will always be small moments of joy. And that’s how I know we’re going to be okay.

“Uh, that’s it. Uh, tip your waiters. Thanks!”

Utter silence in the crowd as Hunk all but flees the stage.

Shiro starts clapping. Lance follows immediately, then Allura and Pidge and Romelle. And soon the whole field echoes with applause and cheers and shouts.

“That’s my boy!” Lance shouts.

“Not what I would have said, but it appears to be effective on a human audience,” Allura says, wiping tears out of her eyes.

“Where did Hunk go?” says Pidge. “We need to go find him and attack him with a hug!”

“Agreed!” says Allura.

“I know exactly where he’ll be,” says Lance, cracking his knuckles.

Shiro hesitates. “I need to get back to the hospital.” To Keith.

The others look at him.

Shiro takes a deep breath. “Let’s go find Hunk.”

 

 

A few hours later, it’s just past sunset when Shiro returns to the hospital. Even this place was affected by the memorial, in its own medical way: as he passes the ER he sees wheeled in two cadets who already need their stomachs pumped from too much celebrating. The elevators are full of people returning wheelchair-bound patients to their rooms after a day out celebrating. Several of them get off on the same floor as he does: long-term care.

A soft, burnt-orange light suffuses the floor as the others peel off one by one into their rooms. Shiro continues on. Keith’s room is at the end of the row.

He can hear a TV before he gets to the door. A news commentator talking about the memorial: “...Not the most orthodox speech, but maybe what the world needed to hear right now…” Krolia must have turned it on.

He opens the door.

The sky through the window is a beacon of desert-red. Krolia sits by the bed, a smile on her face. The TV putters on. Shiro sees all this in his peripheral vision because his eyes, as always, go straight to the man in the bed. The man whose eyes are open, and looking at him.

That wan, still, beautiful face splits into a tired smile.

“Hi, Shiro,” says Keith.

Through the window the sky radiates purple and red, the crowning rays of a setting sun and then Shiro is across the room, on his knees by Keith’s bed, holding the bony, short-nailed hand in his, and this time that hand squeezes back, weakly but it squeezes back, Keith is awake, he’s awake and he’s smiling, and Shiro lets out a wild bark of laughter, rises up to bend over the frail body; he wants to scoop Keith into his arms but he’s still too injured; he settles for pressing his forehead to Keith’s, cupping the still-bruised face, his fingers just brushing the bandage encircling Keith’s hair.

“It’s good to have you back,” he says, lips an inch from Keith’s.

Keith’s smile widens, closer to his old smirk.

“It’s good to be back.”

 

 

Keith is still bedridden, and will be for a few weeks. He still sleeps a lot. But he’s making steady progress, the doctors say, and with a little luck there will be minimal lasting damage.

Of course, none of that is enough for Keith.

“I’m so sick of this bed,” Keith growls, in the middle of Shiro telling him about Earth’s fledgling united defense system. He shifts as if about to get up, then winces in pain and slumps back down, defeated. “Patience yields focus,” he sighs.

Shiro chuckles, his eyes raking over Keith’s face. “I know what you mean.”

Keith looks at him, understanding. “I think you’re the only one who hates hospitals more than me.”

“It’s a close race, that’s for sure.”

Keith gives him a tired smile. He doesn’t need to say anything else. He knows. Silence sits easy on them.

Maybe too easy. Maybe there is more to say.

“You’d think I’d be a pro at hospitals by now,” Shiro finds himself saying. “But… somehow, patience was a lot easier when I only had a few years. Now that I have--maybe--a whole lifetime… it’s harder.”

He pauses, expecting Keith to speak, but Keith still says nothing, waiting for him to continue. Shiro lets out a bitter chuckle.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” says Keith.

“It’s not that. I was afraid you were going to make a clone joke.”

“What?” Keith’s brows draw together.

“You know I’ve been trying to… to be less uptight, I guess. Well, every time I try, people joke that I’ve been replaced by another clone. Like, yesterday, I sat with Hunk and Lance at lunch, and hung around for a bit after I’d finished eating to keep talking to them. And Lance said, ‘Oh no, Shiro’s been replaced with another clone!’”

“Fucking Lance,” Keith growls. “I’ll talk to him.”

“I already did, actually. I told him I didn’t like it, he apologized, he told me he keeps bringing it up because he feels guilty about the clone reaching out to him for help and didn’t know how to apologize to me for not taking him seriously.”

Keith pauses, surprised. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Shiro scratches at the back of his neck. “All the clone jokes, it’s the kind of thing that I would have just ignored before, you know? Or, buried, I guess. But… yeah, if I have a whole life in front of me, maybe I have to stop burying that stuff.”

Keith smiles. “I’m proud of you, Shiro.”

Shiro lets out a puff of surprised laughter. “I’m terrible at this. Talking about my feelings. I hate it, actually. It really fucking sucks. But I’m also… I’m sick of living like I’m dying.” He looks at Keith, trying to convey with his eyes and the pressure of his hand all the feelings inside him--all the old wounds knocked open, all the new ones fighting for space with too much scar tissue. “You deserve better than that.”

“Shiro,” Keith breathes. He inclines his head, just a bit, as much as he can manage, and Shiro closes the rest of the distance to his lips. The kiss is gentle and warm and so sweetly hungry that it makes Shiro’s eyes prickle with want. He lifts his hips out of his chair so he can slide into the hospital bed alongside Keith, his legs knocking gently against Keith’s and his flesh arm across Keith’s chest.

They kiss lazily, as if the two of them have nowhere to go. and maybe, for the first time in either of their lives, that’s true. Nowhere to go, no roles to play, nothing to do--nothing they can do--but kiss, and breathe in each other’s scent.

He brushes their nose together, then nibbles on the side of Keith’s jaw. “Baby,” he breathes, revelling in the way Keith’s whole body shivers at the touch of his breath. “Can I call you that?”

Keith’s whole face is red. “Yes.”

“Good.” Shiro goes back to kissing his jaw. “You can call me that too. If you want.”

When Keith doesn’t respond, Shiro lifts his head.

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.” Keith’s eyes are dark, his flush well on his way down his neck. “I’ll… try,” he says gruffly. “It doesn’t feel easy. I’ll work on it.”

“Okay.” Shiro props his head up on his tech arm and takes a moment just to look, his flesh arm rubbing circles into Keith’s chest. Keith stares right back, as if he could will his own body well again just with the intensity of his want.

Shiro can feel his pulse between his legs.

Instead of doing anything about it, Shiro leans down to whisper in Keith's ear again. “What’s the first thing you’re gonna do when they clear you?”

The look Keith gives him is scalding. It makes Shiro feel like he’s on a hoverbike instead of a hospital bed, makes him feel like he’s gunning the engines just meters before a cliff drop.

“I can think of something.”

“Yeah?” Shiro moves his hand to Keith’s hair, careful of the bandage. “Like what?”

“Are you really gonna make me say it?”

“I’d really like to hear you say it.”

“Gonna fuck you,” Keith growls. “Then ride you, then fuck you again.”

Shiro blinks, then flushes. “Yeah?”

Keith pulls back to look him in the eye. “I--I--was that too much?”

“No, it’s amazing, you’re amazing.” Should have known Keith would be a dirty-talk savant. He dips his head for another kiss, fierce and messy. “You like to switch, huh?”

“Yeah,” Keith says into his mouth, the words almost a groan.

Their lips still touching, Shiro whispers back, “Me too.”

“Fuck.”

This time Shiro moves his head so Keith can reach his neck, his cheeks, his ears. Keith is a little rougher, more teeth than lips and tongue. Shiro loves it. “Tell me what it’s gonna be like.”

“How--how do you want it?”

“Anything is good as long as it’s you.” Keith makes him feel like a dirty-talk savante, too. It's so easy, especially when Keith makes that little moan that sounds more like a growl.

“Shiro...” Keith’s voice is a scrape.

“Tell me what you like, baby,” Shiro says.

Keith pulls back, cuts his gaze to the side. “I… well. I don’t know if my experience is, uh, relevant.”

Now that piques Shiro’s curiosity. “What do you mean?”

Privately he had wondered if Keith had ever had sex before. When Shiro left the Garrison, Keith had been a teenager with walls that made the Atlas’s energy shield look like a paper lantern. But Shiro hadn’t been sure how to broach the subject before.

At least Keith doesn’t look embarrassed. A wry grin tilts his lips as he says, “Shiro. You’ll be my first human.”  
It takes Shiro’s brain a few moments to catch up. “You mean…”

“In the Blades, yeah.”

“Wow.”

Keith shrugs, his voice casual but his eyes studying Shiro’s face. “It’s a secret order of warrior-spies who regularly go on life-threatening missions. Everyone fucks.

It was nothing serious, but… there was a lot of it.”

Shiro grins. “What’s Galra dick like?”

Keith chuckles. “Same idea, but purple.”

“Is your dick purple?”

Keith raises his eyebrows. “Wait and find out.”

Shiro can’t believe it. He’s giggling. It feels great. “Can’t wait, baby. Anyone I know?”

“Don’t think so.” A ghost of a frown passes over his brow. “Two of them are dead now.”

“Oh.” All the buoyancy in him evaporates immediately. “Keith, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. We all knew what we were signing up for.” Keith breathes through his nose, shifts in the bed with a pained grunt. “Sorry. I ruined it.”

“It’s okay.” Shiro runs his hand through Keith’s hair, from his scalp down to the soft, slightly split ends. He tugs on a lock of it. “Do you want to talk about them?”  
Keith licks his teeth. “Yes. But not right now. Right now… I wanna keep kissing you. Is that bad?”

A sad little chuckle escapes Shiro’s throat. He rests his forehead against Keith’s, their lips just a whisper apart. “I sure hope not.”

Keith grips Shiro’s hair with both hands. It’s long enough, and the grip tight enough, that it hurts a little, but Shiro doesn’t pull away. If anyone can be forgiven for holding on too tightly to something, it’s Keith.

After a moment, Keith pulls away again. “Tell--tell me what you like.”

“Oh.” Shiro pauses to consider. It’s been...god, has it been more than two years? He and Adam broke up months before he left for Kerberos, and then he was on a cramped shuttle with two people who were basically family, nevermind straight. Then a Galra prison. Then Voltron. Then the void.

“I just… wanna be touched.” To his horror, his voice cracks on the last word. When will he stop unearthing new layers of pain and loneliness in his debris field of a brain? He clears his throat, but Keith is already pulling his head into the crook of his neck, burying his hands in Shiro’s hair, dragging blunt nails over Shiro’s scalp.

It feels so unaccountably good he barely registers the rumbling noise coming from his own chest. He presses his face into Keith’s skin and lets go.

When their lips do meet again, it’s gentle and deep, warm but without the fire from earlier. The kind of kiss that isn’t trying to take anything--only to say something.

They say it again and again.

He’s not sure when Keith starts to drift off. Somewhere along the path from kissing to embracing to what could only be termed--though Shiro chuckles imagining Keith’s chagrin at the word-- “cuddling.” And now Keith’s face is tucked into his neck, his breath soft and even against his skin.

Shiro isn’t sure what to do at first. He remembers a few times he fell asleep on the couch watching a movie with Adam, how annoyed Adam had been at him. Is Shiro supposed to be annoyed at Keith?

He tilts his head to look at the crown of Keith’s head, the slope of his forehead and nose and pointy chin. Keith resting, Keith relaxed, Keith safe in his arms--Why would Shiro be mad? He wants this every night.

Just a few more minutes, then, and he’ll extricate himself from Keith and return to his quarters.

Just a few more minutes.

He wakes up to the sound of the day-shift nurse changing Keith’s IV drip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time.... smut.


End file.
